“The purveyor of some of the most hallucinatory experiments in modern cinema, Guy Maddin turns his eye for the delectably idiosyncratic to the collection of Canyon Cinema. Boasting a catalog of over 3,200 artist-made film and media works, Canyon Cinema has, for 50 years, been an incubator of the avant-garde, catalyzing artists and viewers to explore the outer limits of cinema. In conjunction with Canyon Cinema 50, a year-long celebration of the organization’s historic anniversary, Maddin presents a handful of delightful diversions from its catalog. Ripe with rambling charm, Robert Nelson and William T. Wiley’s ’s inspired classic of the West Coast avant-garde, The Great Blondino, anchors the program, which eschews realism in favor of the ecstatic. Like Maddin’s own work, each film is a handcrafted microcosmos characterized by its artist’s singular—and peculiar—vision and guaranteed to leave an indelible mark in each viewer’s memory.” —Kathleen Maguire

“Shooting in 1966 without script, story, or any narrative preconception, Nelson and Wiley created a masterwork of ’60s independent cinema. The Great Blondino follows an anachronistically attired young fellow as he navigates a beguiling, sometimes troubling world with a curiosity that opens us wide to the filmmakers’ inspired, freeform vision. In many ways, the wonder of Blondino may echo the excitement of invention and exploration that Nelson and Wiley experienced in the making of the film. Utterly exuberant and freed from rote cinematic restriction, it embodies an artistic rigor and direction that also prevents it from ever seeming too unhinged. An incredible feat of tightrope walking.” -Mark Toscano

Canyon Cinema is thankful for the long term support of the George Lucas Family Foundation. Dedicated project funding for Canyon Cinema 50 has been generously provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Owsley Brown III Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and The Fleishhacker Foundation.